Training In Action - UK and Europe

HOW & WHY TEAMS WORK

Team Roles
People bring into a group situation different inputs. The key to developing an effective team hinges on getting the best out of these different types of individual. From studies of successful teams, Meredith Belbin deduced that a truly balanced team consisted of nine roles. Moreover, he identified that everyone has a preferred role which they assume when working in a team situation.

Part of an Overall Profile
During the first afternoon each person is invited to fill in a simple questionnaire which will identify his or her own preferred team role. The need to see this preferred role as part of an overall profile is stressed, since everyone possesses the ability to perform any one of the nine roles when the need arises. This flexibility should be cultivated since the key to a successful team is to achieve balance. Ironically, many teams are very unbalanced, with a number of roles being duplicated and others not being performed at all. This will happen because role preference is largely determined by personality and people tend to gather like minded people around themselves. It may also be the case that the organisation is seen to value certain role models which, consciously or unconsciously people will seek to emulate.

Balanced Teams
The exercises which form part of this first learning cycle are designed to bring out the difference in effectiveness between a balanced and unbalanced team.

COMMUNICATING IN TEAMS

The second learning cycle begins with an exercise designed to highlight the importance of communication and feedback within teams. Definition of objectives, forward planning and the need to recognise and make full use of the resources within the group, are all important messages which may be brought out from this exercise.

Common Frames of Reference
In the review, models relating to communication will be introduced. This topic, which covers bother verbal and written communication, also touches on the issue of perception and the need to create a common frame of reference within a working team. The Johari Window is introduced as a useful model for helping to achieve this objective.

The Minex Exercise
The Minex exercise is an indoor exercise used to test a group's communication skills and its ability to organise the logical flow of information. It requires the group to act as a board of a mining company with a decision-making agenda to appoint a new general manager.

Stages of Development
This session builds on the topics covered to date and looks at the various stages of development through which a team must work before achieving full effectiveness. In this respect, the Belbin roles are seen as providing the 'ingredients' from which effective teams may be developed. Reference is made to Blanchard's work on performing teams and the responsibilities which all team members must share during this process.

The Key Role of Team Leader
The key role of a team leader is to help the team move through the four stages of development, adjusting his or her style of management to provide for the team what they are unable to provide for themselves. The Situational Leadership model is examined as a means of expressing this relationship between the manager and the team.

MANAGING TEAMS

The Shrine Exercise
Having looked at the question of team formation and team development, the programme turns to focus on the skills needed in order to maintain and manage the team. The exercise in this cycle, entitled "The Shrine", requires the group to operate as a single team undertaking a number of parallel activities.

Motivating, Coaching, Delegating
The exercise is useful as a means of highlighting the need for managers to maintain control of an operation when delegating, as well as illustrating the consequences of demotivation due to poor job design or the use of an inappropriate leadership style.

UNDERSTANDING BEHAVIOUR

Personality Types
Effective management relies upon an understanding of people. In this next session use is made of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator to examine personality types. This simple questionnaire looks at the rationale behind the way we work and communicate with others. Seen from the team perspective, this analysis allows us to get behind the Belbin team roles and to understand in more detail why frictions and misunderstandings arise and how we can both accommodate and use these differences to great effect in our relationships.

Bridging the Gap Exercise
The exercise, Bridging the Gap, provides a vehicle for examining the effect of personality type in the way teams reach and implement decisions.

WORKING WITH OTHER TEAMS

Aspects of Group Identity
The final section of this programme examines the positive as well as negative aspects of group identity.

The Tower of Babel Exercise
In the Tower of Babel exercise the group is divided into two business units, each of which has been awarded a separate but related contract. Although financially independent, both business units are part of the same organisation.

The Teams
During the first part of this exercise the teams are required to negotiate terms and agree a strategy for implementing the project. During stage two, the two business units have to execute the project tackling unexpected problems as they arise. The use of actors in this exercise, as in all the major exercises, provides the vital element of surprise, forcing the teams to adapt to new external influences as the project unfolds.

Uniting behind a Common Objective
This exercise has particular relevance for people who may work in autonomous groups, teams or divisions, but where there is a need for each group to recognise its responsibility for uniting behind a common, corporate objective.

The Glass Chalice Exercise
The Case of the Glass Chalice, takes place out on the moor at night. The exercise requires good preplanning, effective communication and some fairly shrewd influencing skills! Moreover, this exercise epitomises one of our own design criteria, which is for the programme to be both challenging and fun!

Managing Change
The success of the Glass Chalice exercise depends to a large extent on the team's ability to cope with change. This aspect of the exercise is brought out during the following morning, focusing on both the initiation of change and coping with the effects of change.

Achievable & Measurable Milestones
The business of working in teams goes beyond an intellectual appreciation of concepts or techniques. It involves the whole person, and the way in which we behave towards others. Moreover, any change which we may wish to make in the way we behave will be difficult and slow since it will require a change in our own internal mental models. During this final morning the group is encouraged to identify one or two personal objectives to carry forward. It is then important to agree the first measurable and achievable milestone in that direction since experiencing success in this first step is the key to providing an on-going commitment to change.